A place to explore questions about Torah, Jewish tradition and how we interact with the world meaningfully.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Vayeitzei and Dissatisfaction

Rabbi Yair Robinson

Parashat Vayeitzei

I
got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe,flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

I
slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

-Jane Kenyon

This Thanksgiving I felt dissatisfied. Not with the food, or
the company. Not with my family, gathered around one table or another. I know
that I am blessed beyond all reasonable expectation.

But I’m thinking about so many communities—and families—in
despair.

How could we not think about Ferguson, her people weeping,
their city burning?

How could we not think about those four families in Har Nof,
and the one further north, sitting shiva, crying over lost fathers and
husbands?

How could we not think about our neighbors in Browntown, on
23rd st., on Maryland Ave. who were kept awake this week by the
sound of gun shots in their communities?

How could we not think of those who, in their rush to
protect the Jewish state, are tearing the very fabric that holds it together
with a law that is, at best, meaningless, and at worst, bigoted?

How could we not think of those who, in their pursuit of
justice, merely blame the other rather than hear the pain in each other’s’
voices, and feel the pain in each other’s’ hearts?

How could we not think of those who had the no-choice
yesterday of being with their family or going to a job that pays little under
the threat of having no job at all?

Tonight, I am dissatisfied.
I am sad. I am wrought up.

But as Rabbi David Wolpe reminded us this week, Judaism is
the religion and language of dissatisfaction. The answer is not to ‘let it go’,
with a shrug of the shoulder and look of surrender on the face. No. We are
meant to be dissatisfied. We are a people acutely aware that our blessings must
be numbered and measured, so that we may see the suffering around us and
embrace it.

I was asked this week which character of the Torah I
identified the most. The answer is Jacob, for two things he says, one in this
week’s portion and one in next week’s. The first: God was in this place and I
didn’t know it. This is as true a sentence as any. We walk through life too
often blind to our own blessings, blinded by our first-world problems, and
Jacob calls us to put them aside and see what is really before us. The other is
“I will not let you go until you bless me”. That is the posture and action of
one who recognizes the struggle and takes it as his name—Yisrael—that we must
embrace one another all the more fiercely, all the more tightly, with greater
intention and intentionality. Embrace one another truly—including each other’s’
faults and foibles. Embrace one another and hold on for dear life, in struggle
and love, until we see the blessing instead of the curse; until we can be the
blessing for one another, instead of the curse. Embrace them: as tutors in
hard-hit schools, as donors for troubled communities in need, as citizens
wrought up over the injustice we see around us, but most of all as friends
whose act of love and kindness can be all the difference for the person in
front of us, whose struggle we cannot see.

Yesterday I was in Washington. Elishai’s grandparents—healthy,
active—took him to see various places in our nation’s capital. My wife and I
shared some time with her longtime friends. We called my parents and sister—all
of whom healthy and well— on Cape Cod. We ate well. It might have been
otherwise. We know too many for whom it is otherwise in our world, in our
community, perhaps even in our own inner circle. So let’s open our eyes and see
the blessing around us, and then embrace them, embrace the suffering other, and
hold them, until we may be the blessing for them as well. Kein Yehi Ratzon.

1 comment:

There's a wonderful dvar Torah by Lord Rabbi Sacks on this weeks parsha which addresses some of these comments on last week's Parsha.

http://www.ou.org/torah/parsha/rabbi-sacks-on-parsha/parable-tribes/

He talks about the chapter on Dinah and Schechem where there really are no heros and there are no truly unredeemable people either. He cites a machloket between Rambam and Ramban, the former taking the position that all the men of Shechem had to suffer because because there is a communal responsibility to contain evil within their midst while Ramban took the position that Arevim Ze Ba Ze only applies to Jews. So if you look at its application to Ferguson, not far from where I used to live, there is a communal responsibility not to be a threat to each other and to the peace officers assigned there to protect them that was not fulfilled compounded by national figures in that community rationalizing rather than denouncing the rampage that took place there. Yes, shoplifting is not a capital crime but the community did nothing on its own to contain the predators in its midst, either in an ongoing manner or even when the final destruction arose. Rabbi Sacks then goes on with the Parable of the Tribe, very much applicable to not only Shechem but to the reality of Eretz Yisrael which has its share of attackers, be they small time assassins of Har Nof or larger scale bombings from Gaza. Once these occur, the entity being attacked really only has four options (1) get destroyed, (2) get conquered, (3) flee, (4) retaliate. So it does not really matter basically peaceful people around, whether in Israel or in Ferguson, the Torah lesson of Shechem is that once the aggressor is in the midst, you have very little choice but to help perpetuate the violence, even if you were like Jacob and cared more about what the neighbors might think and the negative impact of relations that follow once the violence has been contained. It's not a matter of being insensitive to those who are oppressed.

About Me

I'm blessed to serve as spiritual leader and teacher of an historic and dynamic Reform Jewish congregation, the only one in the state of Delaware. My hope is to make Torah study, worship and music and community accessible, meaningful and engaging. My family, especially my wife and toddler son, continuously bring me joy and inspiration.